This course will provide an introduction to High Power Microwave (HPM) weapons by adopting a modular approach to the design and characterization of a high power microwave weapon system. The objective is to provide an understanding of the system components and the attributes of the weapon system. The basic principles of microwave generation, propagation and interaction with materials will be addressed. HPM terminology, zeroth-order calculations and scaling issues will also be covered. The weapon system is viewed as consisting of five modules: prime power and power conditioning equipment, a microwave source, structures to couple the source to the propagation media, propagation media, and the target. The physical principles governing a module, module characteristics, and the influence and constraints of each module on total system requirements and effectiveness will be discussed. Following an overview of failure phenomenology at the component level, we will examine how these failures can be used to generate a probability of effects distribution for an electronic system. The probability of effects can then be incorporated into a fault tree analysis for estimating the probability of system or mission kill.

This course outline is as follows:

Attributes to the weapon system

Microwave generation

Terminology

Zerothorder calculations

Scaling issues

Physical principles governing a module

Overview of failure phenomenology

Fault tree analysis

Intended Audience

The short course assumes that the registrants hold an undergraduate education in science or engineering and are interested in an overview of HPM systems at some technical depth. No specific knowledge is needed of HPM, electronics, physics of failure, or modeling and simulation. Material is restricted For Official Use Only (FOUO) and attendance is therefore limited to U.S. government employees and contractors. Non-technical managers could profit from the insights they will gain into HPM capabilities and gain further appreciation of the technological challenges faced by the DE community.

Instructor Biographies

William Bailey, Associate Professor of Physics, Dept of Engineering Physics, B.S., United States Military Academy, 1964; M.S., The Ohio State University,1966; Ph.D., AF Institute of Technology, 1978. Professor Bailey's research interests center on computer simulations of plasma dynamics and reactive kinetics and currently include the study and application of dielectric barrier discharges, HPM source and effects modeling and the application of thermionics to space power systems.

David Weeks, Professor of Physics, Department of Engineering Physics AFIT Appointment Date: 1993 (AFIT/ENP); BA Physics with honors, Colgate University, 1983; MS, Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1985; PhD, Physics, University of Arkansas, 1989. Dr. Weeks' research interests include the development of time dependent wave packet methods to model the quantum mechanics of simple chemical reactions and to compute associated state to state reactive scattering matrix elements. A second area of interest centers on the application of k.p theory together with the envelope function approximation to model the electronic and optical properties of quantum well heterostructures.

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